Open Records are your right

This is Sunshine Week, an observance created to promote the importance of open government and freedom of information. Sunshine laws tend to make the news only for controversial reasons, such as the media outlets pressing for access to records from the Sandy Hook massacre or political candidates who use public-records requests to harass opponents. ?

But the controversial cases are the exceptions. At their heart, Sunshine laws protect our right to know what our government is discussing, deciding and doing. And every time lawmakers chip away at open-records laws - as they have done by adding dozens of exceptions to the Ohio Public Records Act - it is the public's rights they are eroding. ?

As budgets have tightened in recent years, there's been a lot of talk about making government more like a business.

Increasing competition and promoting accountability can be worthy goals, but we must remember that in the end, government is not just a business. ?

The government - from the presidency to the village council - belongs to us, and we have every right to know what they do in our name.